‘Oh, nonsense! Miranda will be glad of your money. They only asked me to join them because they wanted some help with the rent. They don’t really like me all that much. Do you like me, Colin?’
‘I don’t know yet, do I?’
‘When we’ve dumped your suitcase or kitbag or whatever, will you bathe with me? Usually I have to bathe alone because the other two can’t swim.’
‘Now, look here, young woman, the reason I’m staying here is that I want a setting for my book. I’m not just a casual holidaymaker. I shall be very busy, I hope, most of the time. I shall be taking notes and getting the feel of this place. I don’t want interruptions and I don’t want company on my excursions. Sorry to be so blunt, but it’s better to get things straight.’
‘All right, but don’t you forget that if it weren’t for me you wouldn’t be staying here at all.’
‘True.’
‘So will you swim with me just this once, by way of saying thank you?’
‘You’re a persistent little so-and-so, aren’t you? This time, however, you lose out and that for the best of reasons. I don’t have my swim-trunks with me. They’re in the car and I’m dashed if I’m going to rout them out now.’
‘Keep your underpants on. If we sprawl out on the dunes afterwards they’ll soon dry off.’
‘I don’t have a towel, and I hate being sun-dried.’
‘Dry yourself on your shirt, then. Any more stupid objections?’
‘Yes. I’m too full of pork pie and beer to go swimming. Here’s my car. Get in and show me this parking space you mentioned.’
‘There’s no hurry. Wouldn’t you like to buy me a drink? The pub will keep open for another half hour and Miranda won’t want us back until she’s found you some bedding and put the room to rights.’
The last thing Palgrave wanted was to involve himself further with the girl, but he followed her into the pub and twenty minutes later they returned to the cottage with his suitcase. The studio couch had been opened out to make a double bed and he had a suspicion that Miranda and Adrian had stripped the sheets from their own bed to put on his. There were no pillows, but plenty of cushions, and in reply to an enquiry he said that he was sure he would be comfortable. He added that he would like to change his clothes.
Accepting the hint, the other three went out, Camilla to bathe, Adrian to search the marshes and the shore for plants and small sea-creatures which would suggest wallpaper patterns, Miranda to make pencil sketches of the church. He watched them go past the window and then he unpacked his belongings, put on flannel trousers, an open-necked shirt and a blazer, thrust a notebook into one of the pockets, hid his wallet and cheque book in his bed, and walked out on to the marshes.
He had reckoned without Camilla. She was waiting for him and she fell in beside him as soon as he appeared. He said nothing and affected not to notice she was there. The afternoon was hot. Very soon he took off his blazer and slung it over his shoulder. They tramped over coarse grass and sea-lavender until they came to the sand-dunes. Here they ploughed their way through the deep, soft sand and the marram grass and when they reached the top Palgrave sat down and took out notebook and ballpoint. Camilla lay down beside him, propped her chin on her fists and gazed out towards the pebble-ridge and the sea. Palgrave frowned at the blank page of his notebook.
‘I’m being very good, don’t you think?’ said the girl.
‘You’d be a lot better from my point of view if you were somewhere else.’
‘Tell me all about yourself. I’m a student of human nature and I’ve never met a rude man before.’
‘I’m not rude. I’m here to write and I don’t want company, that’s all, especially the company of adolescents. I get quite enough of that at school.’
‘Are you a good schoolmaster?’
‘Competent, I suppose.’
‘Shall I tell you about myself?’
‘No thanks.’ He got up, returned his notebook and ballpoint to his pocket, picked up his blazer and scuffled his way downhill towards the beach. He thought at first that the girl was not going to follow him, but he was clambering and sliding over the smooth pebbles when she caught up with him. When he had cleared the ridge he found that there was a shallow lake left by the last tide. The girl came cascading down the pebble-ridge and sat down on the sad-looking shore. It seemed to consist of more mud than sand, and exhibited numberless casts and depressions made by lugworms, for although the tide had turned it was a long way from the high-water mark.
Camilla took off her shoes. She stood up, walked on the squelchy shore and called back to Palgrave:
‘At least take your shoes and socks off! Don’t you love to feel the mud between your toes?’
‘Not particularly. Where I usually spend my holidays the walking is over heather and the peat-bogs. Oh, well, if you want to, let’s swim.’
There was nobody else about. They stripped off, the girl revealing that she was wearing a bikini under the loose sweater and the calf-length jeans, and were soon splashing their way through shallow, sun-warmed water.
The girl was a competent swimmer, but Palgrave soon outdistanced her. The bottom shelved suddenly and he found himself in deep water, although the waves were small. When, having had enough, he swam back and waded ashore, the girl was still disporting herself. He climbed back to the sand-dunes and lay spreadeagled to dry off. After another quarter of an hour she joined him. He saw her coming out of the water and before she reached him he had pulled off his still damp underpants and was into his flannel trousers.
Camilla apparently had no such inhibitions. Unconcernedly she took off her two bits of almost non-existent nonsense and lay down. From the colouring of her skin Palgrave deduced that sunbathing was among her ways of passing the time in these desolate surroundings. He took a pipe and matches from the blazer which was lying beside him and sat clasping his knees and smoking as he gazed out to sea.
Beforetime he had spent a holiday at a resort on the Solway and had seen the unexpected speed with which the tide there came in and receded. Here it did not come up so fast but, even so, he was interested to watch as, more swiftly than he would have supposed, half the mudflats were covered.
At the cliff-top town which he had left that morning, the incoming tide took a slightly slanting direction from northwest to south-east, but here, less than forty miles along the coast, this trend seemed to be reversed. He put this down partly to the direction of the wind. Although it was warm, it blew fairly strongly, caressing his bare shoulders and ruffling the girl’s dark hair.
He looked across at her. Her face was turned away from him with her head resting on her rolled-up sweater. Her back was childishly thin, the shoulder-blades slightly prominent, the waist scarcely narrower than the hips. The back was enticingly hollowed like that of a young gymnast and her legs were long and straight. She looked defenceless, elemental and, in spite of the immature body and the careless boyishness of the whole pose, seductive and desirable.
Palgrave shook his head at his own thoughts, knocked out his pipe on his tin of tobacco, rolled loose sand over the dottle, stood up and put on his shirt and blazer. He rolled his underpants into a ball and stuffed them in his blazer pocket, disposed of his pipe, tin and matches in the other pockets and said,
‘I’ll leave you to put your things on. I’m going back now.’
‘Oh, wait for me,’ she said, ‘and I’ll make you a cup of tea.’ Palgrave turned his back while she dressed. She caught his hand when she was ready and held on to it, swinging his arm a little as they walked, more slowly this time, across the marshes and along the banks of the creek. They crossed the plank bridge, took to the causeway and made their way towards the village.